Casting off

By
Andrew Johnston

Jan. 6, 2014, 9:44 a.m.

HIS syndicated newspaper columns, magazine spreads and regular television hosting gigs have turned him into a household name among Australia’s fishing community.

Casting off

Rob Paxevanos' career as a fishing journalist, which began at the Queanbeyan Age, has take him to some of Australia's most remote and exotic locations including this journey (pictured) to Lake Eyre, South Australia.

HIS syndicated newspaper columns, magazine
spreads and regular television hosting gigs have turned him into a household
name among Australia’s fishing community.

But it was right here in these pages that
Rob Paxevanos got his start in the media game with a weekly column that first
appeared in The Queanbeyan Age 15
years ago.

Then a civil engineer working in
Queanbeyan, Paxevanos was driven to turn his hand to writing in a bid to
address a dearth of fishing coverage in the local media.

But while fishing had always been in the
now 44-year-old’s blood, journalism was another story altogether.

“The average person who finished high
school was probably a better writer than I was,” Paxevanos admits. “The writing
came hard for me.

“English was a second language for my dad
and I only just passed [English] at school…so when I started writing for The Age it would take me two to three
days to write and proof read a single column.

“Now that same job takes a couple of hours.
But I always had that Aussie attitude to give something a go and it was my
passion for fishing that got me through it.

“I think if there’s something you’re
passionate about, you’ll always find a way to talk about it, or film it or
write about it.”

And write about it he did. Over 1500 of
Paxevanos’ articles on every aspect of fishing imaginable have since hit the
pages of Fairfax newspapers around NSW.

A lifelong fisherman, Paxevanos was
introduced to the sport at the age of three. His first fish? A Redfin caught
with his grandfather in Victoria.

Since then, he’s gone on to turn his
passion into a full-time career as a fishing instructor, newspaper columnist,
author and long-time television presenter on Fishing Australia.

He’s also the face of numerous instructional
fishing DVDs and earlier this year released his first book, Australian Fishing Basics, based on his
four decades of personal experience.

Today, Paxevanos is one of any number of
columnists and TV presenters catering to an ever-growing market of serious
sports fishermen as well as weekend fishos.

But such was not always the case as he
recalls the battle fought to force fishing into the mainstream when it came to
media coverage.

“I used to have to get up at 6am to watch
Rex Hunt on TV,” Paxevanos recalls. “That was really the first Aussie fishing
program.

“Now
there’s a dozen or so shows out there which is testament to the popularity of
fishing. I was lucky [Fishing Australia] was
one of the early shows to get established so I do feel like I was a big part of
that [surge in interest].”

While his love of fishing, and extensive
media commitments, have taken him to some of Australia’s most exotic locations,
it’s the rivers and lakes of southern NSW that have formed the core of his
experience.

And he said Queanbeyan – within a couple of
hours of the trout of the Snowy Mountains, the beaches of the South Coast and
everything in between – was the perfect base of operations to take in just
about every type of fishing.

“In terms of proximity to Queanbeyan, the
jewel in the crown is probably Googong,” he said. “It’s not necessarily that
easy to catch fish there but it’s a beautiful environment.

“The Queanbeyan River itself has reasonable
fishing and the Murray Cod and Golden Perch are making a comeback as the carp
slowly get weeded out.

“But you’ve got lots of little nooks and
crannies like Captains Flat Dam around; little places in and around Queanbeyan
that you can visit. There are definitely some surprising places for fishing in
this region.”